Bron’s chocolate oat & sesame cookies – Christmas baking III

Yes folks, astonishingly, I still haven't finished telling you about my baking exploits!! Just to recap – I had already made lemon shortbread and double peanut butter cookies, both of which had turned out to be delicious. But there was one more cookie I was dying to make, and that was something I'd seen on Bron Marshall's site.

You know how sometimes you are reading a blog and think "wow, that looks delicious" and 10 minutes later you have no recollection of where you saw it – and clearly you never get round to making it? But then sometimes you see something on a blog and you simply cannot get the idea out of your head. It haunts you dreams and eventually you have to make it just to get a moment's peace from your subconscious! Well, these cookies were definitely in the latter category. Sometime in early November Bron had posted her chocolate, oat and sesame cookies and I don't know if it was the food-porny pictures or the yummy description, but for me it was love at first sight. I think part of it was also that I have always been a fan of oaty chocolatey cookies and these reminded me of a prettier version of the chocolate crunchies I made for the 2005 blogger cookie swap. So for my final Big Bake of 2006, these were an obvious choice.

But, as is always the case in my life, things didn't go 100% to plan. I stopped off at the supermarket after work and grabbed a couple of the ingredients. I got home, made some dinner and got the oven heated up for some post prandial baking. But once I had measured out the ingredients I realised I hadn't written down the method. So I logged onto Bron's site, scrolled down and found… nothing! Zip! Nada! Paniiiiic! It's not su much that I didn't write down the instructions as the fact that they weren't there! Yes, I guess I could just have chucked it all together in a big bowl and hoped for the best, but as an occasional baker at the best of times, I didn't exactly want to trust my instincts!! So I e-mailed Bron, said a little prayer that she was a) awake, and b) checking her e-mail. Then I did what any sane woman in my position woud have done: I poured a glass of wine and flopped down in front of the TV for an hour. When I went back upstairs to check e-mail… there was a reply from Bron, and a method for baking the cookies. Hurrah!! Day saved! Thanks Bron!

Below is the recipe reproduced from Bron's site. The only adjustment I made is to add extra butter. I found with the original ratio of butter to dry ingredients my dough was way too dry to stick together and the cookies were falling apart before I could get them onto the baking sheet, so for the second batch I upped the butter content and things worked a lot better. Bron includes a recipe for icins, but I liked these plain, just like nature intended. Also – if you are impatient like me and think that all this "allow to cool before removing to a wire rack" is just superstitious mumbo jumbo, these cookies will convince you otherwise. DO NOT ATTEMPT to remove them from the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes!! They really will fall apart in your hands. Really. Trust me on this

BRON'S CHOCOLATE OAT AND SESAME COOKIES (makes about two dozen)

Ingredients

¾ cup of plain white flour

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

1 cup rolled oats

¾ cup of sesame seeds

¾ cup of caster sugar

100 grams of butter (I increased this to about 140 grams)

3 tablespoons of golden syrup

1 tablespoon of hot water

1 teaspoon of baking soda

Method

Preheat your oven to 160C.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a large bowl, add in the remaining dry ingredients (rolled oats, sesame seeds, caster sugar) and mix to combine.

In a small saucepan melt the butter and golden syrup by stirring over a low heat until it is all melted and smooth.

Set the mixture aside to cool slightly.

Mix the baking soda and water in a small cup and add this to the golden syrup mixture, it should come to a foam.

Fold the foam into the dry ingredients and combine well.

Roll good tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls and place lined baking trays, flattening slightly with your fingers.

Bake for 12 minutes and continue to cool the cookies on the baking tray for at least 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

And if you like cookies, why not make a donation to the Menu for Hope campaign and put yourself in line to win one of a number of cookie-relatedprizes for only $10? Or of that doesn't grab your fancy, why not bid on the beautiful South African recipe book and goodie bag that I have donated? So far we have raised an astonishing $35,000 for the UN World Food Programme – way in excess of last year's $17,000! Well done. Now let's see if we can get to $40,000 by 22 December and do ourselves even prouder. Please? Just one little bid??

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Years ago, I heard of someone looking at a recipe from the US which called for ‘half and half’, and asking, perplexed, ‘half and half of what?’ So, here’s the question coming from the other direction: What’s golden syrup?

Hi Lil You’re right there – with a cake, once you’ve mixed the batter the hard work is over. With cookies, it’s just beginning! No wonder I only bake them at Christmas Merry Christmas to you too Hi Bill So much for the universal language of food Golden syrup to the best of my knowledge is the same as corn syrup.

these sound delicious and look a little bit like something that might have come out of the back end of a cow-bird! Now that I know what golden syrup is, I’m all over ‘em! but first, another batch of dirty chocolate chipotle cookies.

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Jeanne Horak-Druiff is a freelance food and travel writer as well as a recipe developer and photographer. She is a South African by birth and a Londoner by choice who has been writing about food and travel on Cooksister since 2004. She is a popular speaker on food photography and writing has also contributed articles, recipes and photos to a number of online and print publications. Please get in touch to commission work from her. Read More…